In my humble opinion, nothing is a greater test of heart for a man than sports and combat. You can train, study and read all you want but when the jaws of life slams shut, you only have 2 choices – fight or fold. It is after reacting and recovering that you truly know what you are; are you the champion, rolling off of your oponent with his warm heart beating within your teeth, or are you the victim being tended to by the medical staff? The deciding factor isn’t about winning or losing, no, the decider is whether or not your spirit fought back. People try to theorize that the instinct to fight is born of our environment but I believe that it goes deeper than that. Sure the poor kid who has been fighting since birth has enough experience to fight when pushed but that isn’t to say that the trust-fund baby won’t… [Read more]

In my humble opinion, nothing is a greater test of heart for a man than sports and combat. You can train, study and read all you want but when the jaws of life slams shut, you only have 2 choices – fight or fold. It is after reacting and recovering that you truly know what you are; are you the champion, rolling off of your oponent with his warm heart beating within your teeth, or are you the victim being tended to by the medical staff? The deciding factor isn’t about winning or losing, no, the decider is whether or not your spirit fought back. People try to theorize that the instinct to fight is born of our environment but I believe that it goes deeper than that. Sure the poor kid who has been fighting since birth has enough experience to fight when pushed but that isn’t to say that the trust-fund baby won’t… [Read more]

In the movie Scarface, there is a scene where the drug lord Frank Lopez instructed a young Tony Montana that it was the guys who flew quietly in his business that did well. At the time the hot-headed Tony took it as a soft guy’s instruction on how to play it soft and stay a peasant but Frank’s words held more meaning than he even knew. When you work for someone, and you aspire to grow within the company and accomplish wonderful things, you cannot do it by joining the regulars in gossip, discontent, and mediocre work. There is a fine line between brown nosing and what I am about to say to you, but brown nosing is something else completely so please don’t misunderstand my intent. “A man is a good retainer to the extent that he earnestly places importance in his master. This is the highest sort of retainer.” – Yamamoto Tsunetomo (Hagakure)… [Read more]

I’ll never forget the day in High School after some big to-do about Martin Luther King (it was February, Black History Month) when I was in line for my lunch being stared at by a blonde haired girl who looked like she wanted to cry. Without warning this girl started asking me what I wanted for lunch and loading my tray up with items that I could have gotten myself, making me feel weird and uncomfortable along with the confusion that flooded my mind. I didn’t know this girl but I thought about it later (after politely telling her to leave me alone and putting back the items) and I realized that I was her chosen charity case due to the white guilt that comes along with tales of slavery, Jim Crow laws and lynching. Now I am not a veteran nor have I served in the United States Military but I can imagine that… [Read more]

Right now there is a documentary being run on The History Channel called “Vietnam in HD”; while it is easy to blow it off as yet another film on the old war, I have to say that as a history buff and documentary watcher this one is different. There has only been one other documentary to affect emotion out of me the way I felt watching Vietnam in HD and that was “Reich”. The context of these 2 shows is in giving it to us raw with no chaser, no punches pulled and most importantly the cause and effect of both wars. Movies and Documentaries – Depicting Life In Reich I learned of what Germany was going through prior to Hitler and how he systematically came in as savior, then moved on to cleaner, then finally became complete authority. The pace in which he moved and made decisions was blindingly fast and before you knew… [Read more]

I’m Alpha. Tough shit if you don’t like it or agree with me, but I have Superwoman Syndrome. Although syndrome makes it sounds like an affliction (sometimes is, I guess) – I get mad amounts of work done in a day. In a normal day, I’ll probably have 2 meetings, be on my BlackBerry whilst walking, replying and checking more emails, returning and answering calls and staying up to date with friends and family. Trouble with me, is that I.Just.Cannot.Slow.Down. I’m usually wide awake in bed and my mind is always running in fast forward. I don’t know how to relax because I fear that I haven’t got something done in the day. And that of course this affects relationships. Men have accused me of being aggressive, too much to bear or handle, argumentative, hot headed and every name that’s derogatory about being ambitious under the sun. I’m used to it really. When i was… [Read more]

Men are not in trouble, the gender war is another faux problem created to mask us all from the reality of the overall human situation. If you find yourself reading articles by men and women claiming that men of today are hopeless, lost and unnecessary, please consider the source before you let their assertion upset you. Men have not been denied any privileges in the modern age, we haven’t been locked down, and we haven’t been made to relocate. What has happened is that the playing field that many women and men fought to have leveled is more than on its way to evening out. When change like this happens, much like segregation, change in laws, change in housing or hell any change whatsoever, the bigots come through in droves with their articles, one-liners and commentary of hate disguised as intelligent discourse. Lately the focus has shifted in the blogosphere from the woes of the… [Read more]

In the past I’ve talked about a person’s aura having a lot to do with intimidation. Well beyond walking, your presence has to be one of bravado, I like to call it the Panther presence. When I find myself walking into a building or plaza, I mentally assume ownership of everything there. It becomes my metropolis and it’s people become my people. This allows me to take it all in at a glance and it leads me to walk briskly as if I own the place. A good example of this stride can be seen through Bill “The Butcher” Cutting on Gangs of New York or Ari Gold from HBO’s Entourage. Both these men don’t stroll, they walk like business is meant to be handled! When you walk this way people want to get out of your way and on observation they tend to assume that you’re a big deal. Put a little smile on… [Read more]